Asthma and diet: Researchers offer healthy foods chart for sufferers

Research finds saturated fats make asthma worse and drugs less effective

ABC News

A healthy diet can help ease asthma symptoms, researchers have found.

Two studies showing that people who eat foods high in saturated fats are more likely than others to have asthma attacks will be presented to a Thoracic Society conference in Adelaide today.

The researchers also found saturated fats reduce the effectiveness of the medicines used to treat asthma.

Nutritional biochemist at the University of Newcastle, Lisa Wood, said the research team wanted to highlight the benefits of eating healthy foods to people with asthma.

She said the team had developed a scorecard of good and bad foods, which she hoped asthmatics would use to guide their eating.

If you have a diet that's high in fruit and vegetables compared with a diet that's low in fruit and vegetables that reduces your risk of having an asthma attack.

Lisa Wood

"It's never going to replace asthma medications but nonetheless, because of the beneficial health effects that we've seen, we really do promote this as a healthy way to change your lifestyle which will improve asthma but also which will improve your overall health status," she said.

"We've seen that fruit and vegetables can be very helpful, so if you have a diet that's high in fruit and vegetables compared with a diet that's low in fruit and vegetables that reduces your risk of having an asthma attack."

Associate Professor Wood said more research was needed to determine if poor diet could be a risk factor for developing asthma.

"Some big population studies have suggested that dietary factors can lead to the development of asthma but there isn't really a lot of strong interventional data to support that at the moment, that's another area that needs further research," she said.